


Flotsam and Jetsam

by Cywolf



Category: Naruto
Genre: AU, Canon, Drabbles, Gen, Multi, Naruto deserved better, Naruto's not always happy, No pairings - Freeform, oneshots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 6,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29011041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cywolf/pseuds/Cywolf
Summary: A collection of character-centric oneshots and ficlets. Mostly gen, no pairings.
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter Index

  * **Celebration** : Naruto spends his birthday the best way he knows. (Naruto, gen)
  * **Avon's Harvest** : Little Neji has never thought about his mother. (Neji, gen)
  * **Destroyer** \- Tenten in the ANBU (Tenten, gen)
  * **Return to Morning** : Kakashi can't look at Naruto. (drabble, Kakashi, angst)
  * **Unholy** : Drabble in 200 words. Naruto is a good actor. (Naruto, angst)
  * **Tenth of October** : Drabble. On the tenth of October, the Yondaime offers a sacrifice to the God of Death. (Naruto, Yondaime Hokage, angst)
  * **Legacy** : New genin Naruto Uzumaki runs into a boy very like him. (Naruto, gen)
  * **To Lay With Dragons** : Tenten's always loved dragons. (Tenten, gen)
  * **Festivals** : Sometimes, Tenten remembers the festivals. (Tenten, gen)
  * **The Plan:** Come hell or high water, he would stick to the Plan. Naruto swore it on his blood. (Darker take on Naruto's real motivations)




	2. Celebration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Naruto's birthday, and he's spending it as best he knows how.

Naruto’s sixteenth birthday was shaping up to be as much fun as his fifteenth and fourteenth birthdays had been, and for much the same reason – he wasn’t in Konoha for it.

He hadn’t told Jiraiya about his birthday, and was thus honestly shocked when his fourteenth birthday had actually become an event. Jiraiya had brought him to a tavern at sunset, after a day of surprisingly gentle sparring and some interesting discussion about the way he used Kage Bunshin, and proceeded to get him well and thoroughly drunk. It turned out that the Kyuubi _did_ burn the alcohol from his system, but if Naruto drank fast enough and the stuff was potent enough, he could keep a pretty good buzz going. (Jiraiya’s rules about alcohol, women, and money were suspended on special occasions such as a boy’s birthday _or_ whenever ero-sennin felt the need, apparently)

For his fifteenth, Jiraiya had brought him to an _okiya_ – after hammering in the behavior he expected from his apprentice, and that _geisha_ were not prostitutes, or exotic dancers, or even drinking buddies. “You need some refining, stupid boy!” Jiraiya had barked at him, and then deposited him into the tender mercies of a slim, kimono-clad lady so beautiful that Naruto had been half-paralyzed with fear. She had spoken gently to him, in a way very few ever had, and he had instinctively – with the nervous caution of someone who had never been in quite this position – responded in similarly quiet tones. She had played the flute for him, and poured him tea, and spoken learnedly of literature and music as he fidgeted uncomfortably. He had emerged from the experience bemused and feeling like he had glimpsed something very alien from his world.

Naruto wondered, idly, what the ero-sennin would have done for his sixteenth birthday had they not placed themselves back under Tsunade-baachan’s grim eye.

But they had, and he was a shinobi of Konoha again.

He had first known October 10 as a day of pain and of colder eyes and of piercing loneliness, of watching things he would never have or be permitted to touch, way before the Sandaime had told him it was his birthday. There had never been a time he would not have been happier to skip over it entirely.

Unlike before, however, he now had a way to do so. The festival celebrating Kyuubi’s death was one of the largest, if not _the_ largest, event in Konoha’s social calendar. Shinobi did _not_ take missions, not even D-class errands within the Village, on the day. Only the barest skeleton-crew of patrollers and guards were posted, and they were paid triple-overtime for it. Naruto’s genin team would never have gone on a mission on October 10, and they wouldn’t have appreciated his asking.

But now he was acknowledged as near jounin-class in skill, even if technically still a genin. He had been able to take a solo B-class after the Council’s decision to restrict him to the Village was overthrown by equal parts Tsunade’s political maneuverings and his casual demonstration of the power he was able to control – to _control,_ not just use. So he had taken a mission to infiltrate the manse of some country lord, and check if he was in fact mustering his own private armed force to use against Fire’s daimyo. It would take him a reasonable amount of time. It would prove that he had learned some data-gathering skills from Jiraiya-sensei – er, ero-sennin.

It would keep him away from Konoha on October 10.

And at the moment, that’s all he would ask for.


	3. Avon's Harvest

When he was young, Neji had regarded his family as consisting of two people: himself, and his father. There was no one else necessary to his life; he understood that Hiashi and the Main House loomed large in their world, but he had never thought that it wouldn’t be much pleasanter without them.

He had never missed his mother – not really, not the way he missed his father whenever Hizashi went away on business. Eventually, he came to understand that his family was in someway incomplete, that other children had things like soft cuddles and kisses and gentle words from females that he didn’t. But his father, he decided, was more than ample compensation; those children needed two parents because _their_ fathers were not like his.

* * *

Neji was playing alone in a corner of the estate when a group of Main House children came upon him, yelling, shouting, roistering. They came to a halt at the sight of him, while he picked up his ball and held it to himself. The two sides eyed each other warily.

Neji was a Branch member, but he was the nephew of the head of house; Hiashi had been seen actually speaking to him. His father was Hiashi’s strong right hand, not to mention really the other half of himself. On the other hand, these were Main House children – not the heir, true, and much more distantly related to the Head than Neji himself was, but still commanding his respect and deference.

Also, they were older, and stronger, and superior in numbers.

Neji watched them silently, hugging his toy.

Finally, an older boy, the apparent leader of the little group, swaggered closer. “You’re the brat of that Branch-house brother of Lord Hiashi’s,” he said, challenging.

Quietly, Neji replied, “I am.” There was the slightest hint of an edge in his voice.

The other boy scowled, then drew back from him dramatically, exaggerating his movements so that there could be no doubt as to what he was doing. “I know about _you,”_ he said, his voice dripping with disgust. He looked at his companions.

“Come on, everyone, let’s leave. You don’t want to touch _him_ – he’s _cursed.”_ The other children, quick to scent potential game, laughed cruelly – one, picking up on the cue, cried out to the leader, “Tell us what’s wrong with him, Hito!”

“My mama told me about him. His name is Neji, and he killed his mother!”

The children gasped in shock and began to dance around Neji, singing out the delightfully gruesome taunt of “You killed your mother! You killed your mother!”

Neji stared at them until they tired of the game and ran off, still yelling insults. They forgot him very quickly in a new round of games, but the younger boy stood alone in the garden, clutching at his toy, for a very long time.

* * *

For the first time, there was something Neji did not dare speak to his father about; because, he knew, his father had loved his mother. He accepted this in a distant way, in the way of knowing that this fact had nothing to do with him – but this new revelation cast that into doubt.

Finally, miserably, he burst out and asked his nursemaid as she bathed him one night. “Did…did my mother die because of me?”

His nursemaid, a sturdy, cheerful, eminently practical girl from the countryside, answered him honestly enough. “Oh Master Neji, I was not in the household when your blessed mother was still alive,” she told him, scrubbing at his long dark hair. “You had better ask someone who was here longer. I believe old Tanjiro would know.”

So Neji screwed up his courage and went to old Tanjiro, the steward, who looked at him sourly – as he looked at everyone, including Hiashi – and told the boy to be off. Neji, not to be deterred, began to ask anyone he could speak to freely about his mother, increasingly frantic to know the truth.

Finally he found a housemaid who was eager to speak, who disregarded the identity of the little boy solemnly asking her this question in her enthusiasm to talk to someone. “Oh aye, I’ve heard of that poor woman,” she said, lowering her voice to speak in dramatic tones. “The other maids say it was fair horrible, the pain that poor lady had to go through. I heard she screamed so, when the little boy was born, that you could hear it clear to the rooms in the Main House’s residences. And she did not stop for near an entire day! An entire day of screaming. I’m surprised her throat did not give out.”

Neji turned pale.

Not noticing, the maid continued, her voice turning avid as she came to a wonderfully gory part. “And the blood! They do say that the room was simply _awash_ with it, and the doctor had to be helped out of the house, gasping for air. Imagine! They could never clean that room completely, and they had to paint the walls over three times to cover the stains. Poor woman, she took a long time to die. I am surprised the babe didn’t die as well…”

Neji ran.

* * *

He had nightmares, from then on, of rooms awash in blood and accusing eyes, of never-ending screams and sudden, final deaths.

He never told his father about them.


	4. Destroyer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Character(s): Tenten  
> Pairing(s): None  
> Genre: General, a little serious. Definitely not my usual staple, humor, which means I'm kind of off my game.  
> Note: Written for the January theme - Alpha and Omega - over at the ten_squared LJ comm.

Tenten was a regular sight at the Konoha library. The staff there called her by name, and smiled when she came, and she brought little presents for them on special occasions. It was not only that she was a friendly girl (though she was) - it was that she always wanted access to the special records, and she could charm her way into it much easier if she was friendly with them.

She read one of them now - no scroll on techniques or weapons, her usual fare, but an old dusty tome: a book of old myths and legends, remnants of an ancient people and their ancient faith.

It spoke of the ending of worlds.

> _"And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.  
> _ _And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the Name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give Him glory..._ _And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great._ _And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell."_

* * *

She looked up only when someone shook her shoulder, and then only when the shaking had become hard.

"Captain," she murmured, blinking up at her superior in the ANBU. In the ANBU rosters he was registered as Hawk-Four - she always just called him by rank.

Even if he had told her his real name.

He was glaring at her now, his dark eyes intense; his porcelain raptor's-mask was pushed over his brow, ruffling his black hair. "I thought I told you to go home, get some rest; we have a mission tomorrow."

Tenten nodded - not meekly, but obediently. This made her absolute _lack_ of compliance to his orders all the more exasperating, he thought.

"I know, captain - but I just wanted to finish diagramming the -- well, the chemical sequence that will need to take place for the alpha stage of my project..."

"Your mysterious weapons-project. THE weapon you've been working on since you were fourteen. I still wonder, sometimes, why you chose ANBU over Weapons R&D...Do you never stop working on it?"

"Of course I do. I make it a point to never even think about it during missions. And didn't I spend all of yesterday afternoon sparring with you?"

"But the rest of the time...." He reached for the paper she had been writing on, only to be foiled by reflexes that were among the sharpest in the ANBU.

"You can't see it - not yet. It's not even in beta stage yet..."

"What do you call all those craters and burned-out things and exploded places, then?" he asked, smiling at her.

She didn't smile back. "Failures."

* * *

Their missions-briefing was delivered in the pouring rain, and the commander had to shout to make himself heard; even then, most of the ANBU captains and vice-captains resorted to reading his lips, which were exposed from under his half-pushed-up mask.

"...and Teams Alpha, Tau and Xi will take the village on the eastern side," the commander shouted, jabbing his finger at the waterproof map. "Hawk-Four, as senior ANBU, will be in overall command of that operation. Is that clear?"

"Sir, yes sir!"

"Good. Any questions?"

A dragon-masked ANBU, with the insignia of Team Alpha's vice-captain scribed onto her arm-guards, raised a hand.

"Yes, Dragon-One?"

"I just wish to clarify. Our mission objectives are to neutralize as large a number of the enemy as possible, yes?"

"Yes, those are your orders."

"What of civilians?"

The commander hesitated a moment - but only for a moment. "They're knowingly succoring the missing-nin. They're just as much an obstacle to the mission as any shinobi. Obviously the shinobi are more important targets, but if there are any in your way..." His clenched fist spoke volumes.

Most of his ANBU smiled - thin sharp smiles, hidden behind their masks. The ones who didn't knew better than to speak out.

* * *

"Captain, wait."

Hawk slowed down a little, bending his head so he could more easily listen to the shorter Dragon.

"Do you trust me?" was the first thing she asked him.

His answer was automatic. "Of course."

She bowed her head in gratitude and acknowledgment. "Thank you." She was silent for a moment as the two led their teams through the dark, rainy night.

"I have a plan...."

* * *

"It's set, it's set, let's go!" Tenten yelled at the Hawk, flashing towards him with a bloodied katana in one hand and an even more bloodied dagger in the other.

He nodded, and then put his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly, a shrill piercing chakra-enhanced call for retreat. Within short order the teams - sadly whittled down in numbers - were in formation and running for he safety of the predetermined rendezvous. The missing-nin called jeeringly as they fled, but did not seem inclined to give chase - the Konoha ANBU had shown them how high the price could be for the life of one of their own.

So they went back to their houses and barracks, laughing and congratulating each other on driving off the Konohan assault, mending wounds, drinking, eating.

And then the night exploded in a single hellish burst of light and howling winds.

* * *

The ANBU watched from a safe distance, eyes widening behind their mask as the extent of the destruction. The blast wind had knocked them back on their tails like a giant hand shoving at them, and they were only now clambering back to their feet, ears ringing and spots dancing before their eyes.

A pillar of white flame blossomed before them, engulfing the village in its terrible light. The air felt suddenly baked, but it was for more than that that their mouths had gone dry.

Where there had once been a village, a place of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people - there was now nothing. Only an utter ending to all that had once been there.

More than one ANBU turned to look fearfully, or cautiously, or awed - or all three - at the Dragon. She did not deign to notice - though for the first time ever she leaned into her captain when he came up behind her, and put his hand on her shoulder.

She murmured his name, and he marked that - for it was the first time he could remember that she had ever done so.

"I did that. Me." She was quiet for a moment, thinking. "I hadn't named it yet, you know. The bomb."

He shook his head, and looked over at the vanished village.

* * *

_"Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds."_

\- J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, on July 16th 1945 (first nuclear test)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The passages Tenten reads in the beginning are from Revelations 16:7-20.
> 
> Originally posted Jan. 29, 2007.


	5. Return to Morning

No one looked at Naruto and saw Naruto. You couldn't look at him without seeing something else.

The villagers saw the Demon. They saw nights of fire, and loved ones dead and bleeding on the streets; raw red energy blazing in the darkness, fading the sun, nightmare and myth emerged into reality. They looked at the boy and saw the Fox.

His classmates, his peers, they looked at him and saw an idiot. Here was the boy who could never get an answer right, or go through an exercise with any modicum of skill. Here was the boy the teachers sneered at, the boy their parents warned them never to be like. Here was the boy who didn't have a thought in his mind except those that had to do with making trouble for everyone else. But at least – and it was a ' _least_ ' – at least they saw a boy.

Kakashi looked at him and saw the past.

That sunbright hair – those features, gone rounded and smooth with baby-fat but refining into familiar angles more and more everyday – the wide white grin, even with slightly oversized canines – and those _eyes._ He'd seen them a thousand times, a hundred thousand times, before, in his childhood. But _then_ they had been the items of worship for a young, adoring genin, they'd belonged to his chief and captain and god. They didn't belong – _hadn't_ belonged– to a clumsy little boy.

He couldn't stand to see the boy who fidgeted and fell and failed. He couldn't stand to remember his dead god in this too-lively bundle of orange rage. And he couldn't stand teaching him; he always felt so awkward, like a piece gone wrong in a puzzle, teaching things that the Yellow Flash had taught _him_ to the boy who could have been _him_ come again.

' _How do you dare presume to teach your master? How do you dare?'_

He didn't dare. So he turned away, and focused instead on the boy who he could teach rightly, the boy who fit into the puzzle neatly and sharply.

And if those blue eyes looked at him in hurt and anger, he only had to shut _one_ eye, and then he didn't see them anymore.

And when those blue eyes turned away from him, fixing instead – and here was a nice bit of symmetry – on Jiraiya, on the Legend, well, that was right too. Jiraiya had once upon a time taught another pair of blue eyes, and he would know how to teach this pair too, on how to see patterns in your enemy's attack, how to fight and kill and run, how to summon the wind to your hand and spirits to your aid.

The red-eyed boy went away to the Snake. The blue-eyed boy went away with Jiraiya, and came back looking more and more like the hero of Kakashi's youth. Now he could look at Naruto and not wince away; he could look at him and remember, and Naruto fit the puzzle of Kakashi's memory with the quiet click of something that is preeminently suited for its place. And his place, as the _other's_ place had been, was Hokage.

He could look at Naruto. But Naruto no longer looked at him.

* * *

 _and together we'll keep on walking, because we still cannot return to morning_  
  
-Kesenai Tsumi (Inerasable Sin), Full Metal Alchemist OP

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted March 14, 2005


	6. Unholy

_A sinner's mind is a sanctum  
Only you're unholy  
-_Sing for the Moment, Eminem

* * *

Naruto hates everyone.

Unlike _certain other people,_ he does not _want_ to hate everyone. He would like to love them, because surely loving them all would be better than this aching black-red rage he feels whenever he sets eyes on another human being. (And sometimes when he looks at animals, too.)

So he tries. He smiles at everyone. He falls all over himself for the slightest sop of kindness, or even insults and casual blows. He does this special trick of screwing his eyes shut so that he looks especially happy and clueless and so that people won't see what's _really_ in his eyes. He extends a helping hand even to people he would really much rather see damned and suffering and broken. He drapes himself all over anyone who will let him and doesn't draw away until they knock him aside.

He acts and acts, but the routine never sets in.

Perhaps it is the fox's fault. But if that is true, then there is nothing in him _but_ the fox, and that would mean he _is_ the fox, wouldn't it?

Someone is talking to him. Naruto grins, and behind his closed eyes are dreams of fire and blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted April 10, 2005.
> 
> Original AN
> 
> Written after I got pissed off by a jerk. Inspired by that and some of Sunfreak's stuff that I was reading just prior. As with Harry Potter, I find it amazing that after his very screwed-up childhood Naruto is not more homicidal than he is. Especially since he's got MASSIVELY EVIL POWERZ playing tenant inside him.
> 
> New AN
> 
> Back when we thought Kyuubi was supposed to be primal evil and that to write him as softening towards Naruto was cheating.


	7. Tenth of October

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the tenth of October, the Yondaime offers a sacrifice to the God of Death.

_And God said,_  
" _Take now thy son Isaac, thine only son, whom thou lovest.  
There shalt thou offer him up as a holocaust."_

-Genesis 22:2

* * *

It was the tenth of October, and the day had been filled with fire, and destruction, and desperate fighting slowly turning into pure despair.

It was the tenth of October, and the people of Konoha died as easily as candle-flames, shinobi and villager alike.

It was the tenth of October, and Kazama Arashi – the Yondaime Hokage, the Yellow Flash - was pacing impatiently in the waiting-room of Konoha Hospital. The room periodically shook with the earthquake-tremors of the battle raging outside, and at every tremor he had jerked like a man shot, ran to the windows, and watched. The night-sky was lit up by fire and lightning and the glow of chakra, but more than all that by the raw red energy of the Kyuubi. Arashi would glare at that far-away shape, his eyes blazing like fired glass in his drawn, white face. Then he would turn away and stalk stiff-legged back to his circuit over the waiting-room tiles.

A nurse appeared at the door, stumbling a little as the floor shuddered beneath their feet, and told him that his son was born. And something in his chest opened, and bloomed, and filled him with sudden tenderness. He felt as if something he'd been waiting for, something he had been building his life towards, had come.

And then he remembered what was waiting for the both of them outside, and that sudden warmth froze and shattered into a thousand tiny shards of ice.

He had been worried – horrified – _sickened_ \- about what to tell his wife, the mother of his child; but the nurse told him that she hadn't been able to survive the induced labor and childbirth. In the chill that had seized his heart, it had felt like nothing, that news, just one more spear in the barrage – but he knew very well the guilt and sorrow that awaited him.

If he lived to feel it.

He ran into the delivery-room, the air thick with the scent of blood and birthing fluids and that unspeakable chemical-fragrance of the hospital. There was a body on the bed, something that had once been someone he loved; but now he could not spare it a thought. A small, squirming bundle of blankets was thrust into his arms, and he fled the death/birth-room for the battle.

He ought to have kept his full attention on where he was going, which was the only safe way to do it when he going at that mad, blinding speed that had gained him the nickname 'Yellow Flash'. But he could not help but steal glances at this new, squirming stranger in his arms, forming a confused picture of pale, infant's-blue eyes, a small red face more expressive than he imagined a face could be, and a surprisingly thick thatch of blond hair, damp from the birth but already spiking in a familiar way, drying from the wind of their passage. There was a thin wailing in his ears, and he ran to the music of the baby's cries, which sounded to him like storm-winds howling. He stroked the baby's back cautiously and the baby was soothed.

This was his son in his arms – his son – _his son!_ Arashi was dumb with the wonder of it.

And five hours later, he was dead, and his son's cries had sharpened to a feverish pitch that no one would sooth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Original AN**
> 
> Hm, I'd meant for the story to be about a ghost Arashi following Naruto around on his birthday, but somehow a flashback became the main story. Oh well.
> 
>  **New AN**  
>  Story originally posted Oct. 12, 2005 - before we knew what the Yondaime's name really was, but we had all already figured out he was Naruto's father. I have no recollection whatsoever of that 'ghost Yondaime follows Naruto around' story idea.


	8. Legacy

"Hey, dead-last, don't you know only those who passed the test can come to this meeting?"

Naruto turned and smirked, pointing proudly to the Konoha forehead-protector tied sideways around his neck. "What are ya, blind?"

"Huh," the other boy said, a little startled. He peered closer at the metal plate, as if trying to check for forgeries. "When did _you_ get this?"

"Ano sa, ano sa," Naruto began excitedly, launching into an excited retelling of his adventures the night before, attracting an interested if mostly unbelieving audience. When he was winding up with an account of how Iruka-sensei had bestowed a forehead-protector on him in a morning ceremony, complete with an audience of awed shinobi, a voice called from the crowd.

"So, what's with the new look, Uzumaki?"

It wasn't really a new look. Naruto had tied his orange jacket around his waist, that was all, baring his black t-shirt to the world. (more a matter of being overheated than of fashion, actually...) He had tied his Konoha headband, collar-like, around his neck. But most of all were the new goggles on his head - larger than his old ones, with orange lens and a silver frame.

"Oh, these?" Naruto said, pulling them off his head. He held the new goggles in his hands, turning them over thoughtfully. "...after Iruka-sensei gave me my Konoha protector, I was just wandering around...and near that big rock with all the names, you know..."

"The Memorial Stone?" someone supplied.

"Yeah, yeah. Well, I bumped into this kid there." Naruto grinned at the memory. "He was really cool! He asked me if I was a genin - " He stuck his tongue out at the original questioner. "See, someone recognizes me for my talent. Then, then, we ended up sparring a little. He was pretty good!"

The class made surprised noises. Naruto was notorious for never complimenting anyone else (except Sakura) always proclaiming he could do better. Who was this kid that Naruto actually sounded nice about?

"But then I had to go, because it was almost time for the meeting," Naruto said, sounding regretful. He perked up as he added, "But then, but then...he said, to congratulate me for becoming genin today, he'd give me his goggles!" He held them up proudly. "Aren't they cool?"

Then Iruka came storming in, and the new genin filed into their seats. Naruto, lost in thought, never even noticed his crush and her best friend fighting over Sasuke-bastard. He just sat at his seat near the front of the class (next to, though he didn't pay attention to him, a slumbering Shikamaru).

He hoped Obito-niisan would spar with him again soon.

* * *

_to you from failing hands we throw  
the torch; be yours to hold it high_

-Flanders Field

* * *

Original AN: because I joined the Obito FC. :D (written Nov. 23 2005)


	9. To Lay With Dragons

_Set during Episode 166 of the original Naruto series, " **When Time Stands Still** "  
_

* * *

She dreamed of dragons, that night, in a land of ghosts and unseen things.

She had always loved dragons, couldn't even remember when she hadn't thought them the most beautiful creatures she had never seen. She didn't know what her first word had been – the careworkers at the Konoha orphanage had too much to do to bother with such petty details – but they did tell her that as a toddler she had babbled endlessly about ' _d'agons_ ' and she liked to imagine that had been the first thing she had, in fact, said.

Her life had been shaped, to an extraordinary, subtle degree, by her love of dragons. Her expertise with blades had begun as play-acting that she had the fangs and claws of the great beasts. She had learned speed and agility for the chance, if only for a few precious seconds, to fly as dragons flew. Her technique involved spending a great deal of time in the air – that was not just a practicality, or a positioning for marksmanship and to avoid blows – there was something in the heart of it that was less prosaic and more fantasy.

Her Soushoryuu had been named for the twin dragons the summoning scrolls took the shape of as they spiraled into the sky; and she couldn't remember how she had gotten the technique to look that way, only that she grinned and _grinned_ when she realized that it did.

That was as close she might be able to get to having real dragons under her hand.

She remembered when a classmate had told her in a superior, smirking voice that dragons were not real; only a myth, a story, that they had only been inspired by the dragon-shaped techniques every element had. She had flown at him, shrieking in rage more potent than either of them could believe from a six-year-old, and it had taken two instructors to pull her off. They had then spent the rest of the school-day telling her that she really needed to learn how to control her temper - and that her classmate had been telling the truth – there were no such things as dragons.

She had wept into her pillow for hours that night.

Then today, for a single beautiful moment, her childhood faith in something greater than humanity had been restored. It did not matter that they were in the middle of battle against a wandering ninja, faithless and honorless. It did not matter that the daimyo – who was actually female, something that would be of more interest to her in ordinary times – had been stunned and taken by the enemy.

All that she could see were the great dragons rearing against the evening sky, their eyes like yellow suns.

And then Kakashi had flung a kunai, and destroyed the true source of the dragons. They faded away like her dreams, and for a moment she had _hated_ Kakashi, hated him like she had hated that child who had told her that dragons did not exist.

Soon enough she had returned to the real world, had flung herself into battle, and she managed to laugh at her momentary reversion to childhood foolishness. When the reality was here and now, was the impact of her weaponry against enemy flesh and the movements of her body as she wove in between strikes and blows, it was easy to forget.

But that night she dreamed. She dreamed that a dragon came to her.

The dragon coiled around her, smooth and surprisingly warm, for all its reptilian scales – but then the heart of a dragon was fire. She luxuriated in that armless embrace, unable to remember when she had felt so safe, so cherished…so _unlonely_. The life of an orphan kunoichi did not allow for many embraces.

The coils tightened around her, the pressure not at all hurtful. Within the dragon was strength enough to ground her into fine powder, but there was only the sensation of delicious tension. That in itself was a wonder and a joy – like having a hawk perched on her bare wrist, the nearness of danger an added flavor, an intoxicating spice.

She arched her back. The dragon shifted, and it growled – purred – as its sinuous length flexed around her body. She could feel it moving all around her, its smooth scales brushing against her skin continuously, all over, _everywhere…_

And all the while, she stared into eyes like twin suns.

* * *

When her son was born, she named him Ryuu.

His golden eyes glittered as she did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted Jan. 8, 2006


	10. Festivals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the February theme, "Chinese Customs", at the tensquared LJ community.

Tenten could remember the festivals.

The festive, cheerful nature of the feasts, days more special than any other in the year so that it seemed that every day that was _not_ a festival was just time to prepare for them: Lunar New Year - Lantern Festival - the Festival of Pure Brightness – the Double Seventh Festival and the Double Ninth Festival – the Dragon Boat Festival - the Winter Solstice – she could rattle off the dates for each year as fast as she could throw a brace of shuriken, mouthing the old names of the old calendar.

She remembered red lanterns, with fanciful dragons in gold ink climbing up the paper sides. When she was very young she had wanted to play with the bright lanterns, and cried when her mother would not let her, for fear of burning her pudgy little fingers. Great-Uncle Ling would distract her with sesame-seed dumplings, bouncing her on his lap while herolder cousins sat round,and telling stories of _real_ dragons, of Emperors and Empresses who were the Sons and Daughters of Heaven, of great armies hidden in stone and of rivers that carved the world.

Each feast was held in a different house, but the whole clan would show up to each so it seemed very similar after all – what matter did the shape and color of the walls make? The hosts, Uncle Syaoran or Uncle Xin or Uncle Yun or her own father, would show the guests into the banqueting hall, the clan entering two by two, each pair arguing that the other was more worthy to enter first. Sometimes the whole line would be held up as the argument descended into playful shoving, laughter and encouraging shouts ringing in her ears. Then when everyone was inside the feast would begin, the host first prefacing it by an elaborate and humble apology for the scarcity and plainness of the food.

Then the food would be served, in successive courses rather than all at once as was usual, and prove the host's apology unnecessary in spectacular fashion. Tenten could remember sticky rice dumplings in bamboo leaves – chicken and duck gleaming shiny brown, cooked so tender the skin was almost falling off – snow-white crab crackers that crackled in her mouth - steamed vegetables in spicy red sauce – golden corn-and-crab soup with the white egg streamers she liked so much – fish carefully served whole with its head towards the guest of honor – egg rolls and bean curd and lobster and crab and shark's fin.

She would stuff herself until her mother scolded, and then be rescued by some indulgent elder who would place some further treat on her plate. Sticky-mouthed, she would beam up at her adoring relatives while her mother huffed fondly and gently wiped her daughter's face with the hot towels provided at the start of the meal.

She remembered it all so well.

She remembered it too well.

Tenten stared at the rice-bowl in front of her, her dinner in her dim-lit, lonely little apartment, and tried not to cry.

* * *

_They are purged of pride because they died, they know the worth of their bays,  
They sit at wine with the Maidens Nine and the Gods of the Elder Days_

-Rudyard Kipling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original AN: I begin to think that the best time for me to write is when I have other things to be doing.
> 
> New AN: Still true. Originally posted this Feb. 26, 2006


	11. The Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Come hell or high water, he would stick to the Plan. Naruto swore it on his blood.

_WHERE a faint light shines alone,_  
 _Dwells a Demon I have known._  
 _Most of you had better say_ _"The Dark House," and go your way._  
 _Do not wonder if I stay.  
_ -Edwin Arlington Robinson

* * *

Naruto had always thought Shikamaru was a genius.

He had spotted that deliberate, calculating, don't-act-without-reason-behind-it quality of his sometimes-buddy early on, before they had become genin, before that bearded chain-smoker had begun playing games with the other boy. He had known that Shikamaru couldn't be the lazy idiot he passed himself off as, cruising on chance and the nagging of his mother.

Idiots, Naruto argued, aren't admitted into the Academy in the first place; they would die in the exercises that were only the merest hint of what ninja faced – live steel, and instant-kill attacks, and explosive materials a prominent part of the lesson-plans - and maybe parents would raise an outcry. They're weeded out before they can step foot on the ancient linoleum of the Academy, with application tests and physicals and warning pamphlets about the exercises.

And mere chance, he argued further, does not allow for a grade point average precisely that to keep from getting kicked out of the Academy – an average that fluctuated as the rules for the cut-off point were changed.

Shikamaru's only stupidity, Naruto opined, analyzing the other boy's actions with the air of the slightly condescending, was to get caught.

They _knew_ Shikamaru, now; they were on his back twenty-four-seven and wringing his brain for all they could get out of it, like someone using a blade until it went dull. He had been made a chuunin, with all the concomitant responsibilities and losing the relative freedom and training-time of a lower-ranked, not-so-closely-monitored genin. And for what? A green vest and an access level to material that someone could easy enough snitch for themselves?

Catch _him_ fumbling that badly? No way.

They'd never know about what was in _his_ skull until it was too late.

* * *

Naruto had a _Plan_ , and come hell or high water he'd stick to it. He had known what he'd had to do ever since he was a little boy, crying in impotent rage and pain, soaked with dirty street-water that turned brownish-pink with his blood, and no one even pausing when they passed him by.

Become Hokage, climb as high as he could until he got to the point where there was no one higher than he was, no one more powerful, no one able to touch him. He'd stand so high, and everyone would be beneath him, under his feet, and by all the demons in hell, and the one inside him, they'd be sorry then.

They couldn't know that, of course. He knew they watched him, getting all jumpy and cautious whenever he snarled or got angry or did anything mad. So he smiled all the time, or sometimes he'd let himself look sad and puppy-eyed but that didn't really work because no one believed _that_ , and he pretended he was a jovial loser that no one had to be scared of, honest.

Sometimes he slipped. He had to admit that. Maybe he couldn't be so down on Shikamaru when he'd come damn close himself to letting on. The fight with Neji, and Gaara, and oh gods, the fight with Zabuza and Haku on the bridge, when he'd gotten so angry that he'd let himself go. And the fight with Kiba, he kept almost going through with a clever clever trick, make the dog howl, trick the dog by pretending to be one, but then he'd reminded himself of what they did to foxes who outsmarted the hounds too well.

For that one they called out the whole damn pack.

But, he argued to himself, wanting to go back to feeling like everything was on track, it had been necessary. He couldn't look like a complete loser, or he wouldn't get trained. If he lost the element of surprise, of being underestimated, he'd get strong enough to make up for it. And if he hadn't spoken up for Hinata, hadn't protected Sakura, how could he make his righteous, happy, friendly - and most importantly for his purposes - _forgiving_ character-sheet stick?

Yes, starting to make friends and being respected a little was alright. He could change the Plan a little. Sometimes he even wondered if he needed to be Hokage – not right away, maybe? That old lady would make a good one. And it wouldn't hurt to grow stronger alongside his yearmates for a while.

Then Sasuke left, and he fought for real that once, and when it was all over he stared at nothing and tried to feel nothing.

And he fell back to his Plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Original AN**
> 
> My first piece of fiction after midterms! Yay. And I just realized that, damn, I've been writing a lot about Tenten lately. What a nice change of pace this is! Depressing and angry and about Naruto. Hm.
> 
> Written after reading a book by Alden C. Carter called 'Up Country'
> 
> **New AN**
> 
> Originally written March 2, 2006.


End file.
